Fourteen Districts Risk Missing Evaluation Cutoff, Losing Aid

Today’s the last day for schools to get their teacher and principal evaluation plans approved, and as of 9 p.m. Wednesday, 14 districts faced losing the 4-percent aid increase that’s tied to the agreements.

New York City is one of four districts that had not submitted an evaluation plan to the state Education Department, as the city’s Department of Education and its local union could not agree. The others are Harrison schools in Westchester County, Fallsburg schools in Sullivan County and Pine Plains in Dutchess County.

It is unlikely these districts will get approval, as every single approved district—nearly 680 of them—had to make revisions and resubmit before getting the OK.

Nine districts, including Buffalo schools, still needed to make revisions and resubmit their proposals to the state. It is unclear whether they’ll be able to get approval today.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who pushed the evaluations as a measure of accountability for educator performance, stressed again Thursday that he would not extend the deadline.

“Today is the final deadline for the handful of school districts, including New York City, that have failed to get their teacher evaluation systems in place,” Cuomo said in a statement Thursday morning. “Please hear me—there will be no extensions or exceptions.

“Since we established one of the strongest teacher evaluation models in the nation last year, 98 percent of school districts have successfully implemented them,” he said. “The remaining districts and their unions have until midnight tonight to do the same or they will forfeit the increase in education aid they have been counting on and both parties will have failed the children they serve.”

The aid increase, which is tied to the personal income growth of New Yorkers, is about $800 million. School aid from the state is $20 billion in total.

Click here to see an interactive map of districts’ status. (It was last updated Wednesday morning.)